Sparse Arrays: Linear Algebra

Many large-scale applications of linear algebra involve matrices that have many elements, but comparatively few that are nonzero. You can represent such sparse matrices efficiently in the Wolfram System using SparseArray objects, as discussed in "Sparse Arrays: Manipulating Lists". SparseArray objects work by having lists of rules that specify where nonzero values appear.

For machine-precision numerical sparse matrices, the Wolfram System supports standard file formats such as Matrix Market (.mtx) and Harwell–Boeing. You can import and export matrices in these formats using Import and Export.